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Election Ignoring Social Security

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Politico is reporting: “More than 200 Democrats have signed onto a pledge to protect Social Security from any interference, amid some Republican calls for partial privatization of the entitlement program.”

DOUG HENWOOD
Editor of Left Business Observer, Henwood said today: “It’s cheering to see 200 Congressional Democrats sign a pledge to protect Social Security from the sinister ambitions of the deficit hawks – no benefit cuts, no raising the retirement age, and no privatization of the system. Let’s hope that they’re still around after the election, because that’s when the austerity party’s campaign to hack away is going to begin in earnest – when Obama’s deficit commission issues its presumably dire report. (The lame duck Congress probably won’t be able to pass anything, which would mean that the real fight will begin in January.) It would be nice if we were actually talking about all this during the campaign. It would also be nice if someone brought up the fact that predictions of Social Security’s imminent bankruptcy are based on official forecasts of 75 years of near-Depression rates of economic growth. Because if that’s what we’re in for, we’re facing lots of serious troubles that we should also be talking about. And if we’re not in for that, then Social Security faces no problems at all.”

Henwood writes regularly at http://doughenwood.wordpress.com — and his books include Wall Street.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167